Students Build Ship Inspecting Robot 47
First time accepted submitter Hallie Siegel writes "A team of students from ETH Zurich and ZHdK have developed a prototype for a robotic ship inspection unit that is capable of conducting visual inspections of ship ballasts. Ballast inspection – which involves navigating hard-to-reach spots with no line of sight, often in the presence of intense heat, humidity, and hazardous gases – is normally done by human inspectors, and represents a significant cost to ship-owners who must pay for dry-docking and who face lost income when they cannot operate their ships during the inspection period. Because robotic ship inspection can occur while the ship is in operation, it could significantly reduce dry-dock time. The Ship Inspection Robot (SIR), which was developed in conjunction with Alstom Inspection Robotics and which uses magnetic wheels to navigate the I-beams and other awkward obstacles found inside ship ballast, is relatively compact and does not require any cables for power or communication, and thus offers significant mobility improvements over other robotic ship inspection prototypes. Project leaders anticipate that a per unit production cost could be as low as €4K, enabling shipping companies to operate several units in parallel as an additional time-saving measure."
The power of magnetism (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a nice tribute to the power of modern permanent magnets. It's really just an R/C car with a camera and magnetic wheels. The magnets are strong enough that it can drive vertically, or even upside down, on a steel surface. It's wide, with a very short wheelbase, so it can go around sharp vertical corners.
Fails on give a damn (Score:4, Interesting)
Look, if your in a first world country this kind of thing has a great deal of meaning as labor costs are high, safety means something and nobody wants to take an asset out of service. However in the real world the vast majority of ships fly a flag of convenience from a country like Panama and maintenance is the absolute minimum possible as those countries give safety and other concerns lip service only.
It's why ships crews can work out of places like the US for cruises but completely ignore things like labor laws. Think of a ship (not boat) that doesn't belong to a countries navy, now google that ship and look for the flag it's flying. Chances are /really/ good that flag has nothing to do with the country it operates out of.
Companies like Carnival could easily resolve their ship stranding issues by adopting maintenance standards used in other countries, but that costs money and they don't want to spend that. As long as they can pass the safety inspection to dock that is all they care about. Why do you think older ships get renamed and sold after every 10 years? After about 30 years that once glamorous cruise ship, might cargo ship, oil tanker or whatever will simply end up being broken on a beach in India because it's cheaper.
Your talking about an industry that has spent centuries learning how to take advantage of international differences in law to avoid spending money on labor. Before that? There were no regulations requiring it to begin with. These kinds of companies aren't going to dry dock their ships unless they really absolutely have to, and then they'd probably rather sell the ship.